FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

An Inconvenient Democrat: meet Tamyra d’Ippolito (IN).

Don't blink, or you'll miss her.

If you were reading Hotline On Call exclusively, you’d think that Indiana Democrats were going to have to pick a candidate to replace Evan Bayh on the ballot:

Candidates running for statewide office in IN have to collect 500 signatures from each of the state’s 9 districts. Those signatures are due by tomorrow.

Once signatures are in, candidates have until Friday to officially file for office.

Bayh could still file to run, then drop out. But if he does not file his signatures tomorrow, no other Dem is expected to collect the required [4,500] signatures by then, meaning Dems will get the chance to pick their own nominee.

Indiana Democrats appear to be on a course to name a candidate for Evan Bayh’s Senate seat, given the high unlikelihood that another candidate could successfully file the necessary ballot petitions with the state this week in order to enter the primary. But, there is in fact at least one other candidate besides Bayh who was already seeking to get on the ballot.

So, how is Tamyra d’Ippolito, a cafe owner in Bloomington, doing with collecting the 500 petition signatures in each of the state’s nine House districts (a requirement that Bayh’s campaign had already fulfilled, according to Democratic sources and published media reports)? The deadline to complete the filing process is this week.

Ms. d’Ippolito (campaign site here) is currently 1,000 signatures short of the deadline. Actually, to be honest she’s probably several thousand signatures short, given that the Indiana Democratic party is going to be institutionally hostile to the idea of having her on the ballot as the official Democratic candidate. When she announced back in December Ms. d’Ippolito was aware of the unlikelihood of being treated seriously, or civilly: she’s even more aware of it now, judging from the TPM article.

Let us not pretend that there is a meaningful chance of Ms. d’Ippolito becoming the official candidate: the Indiana Democratic party will quash her candidacy as a routine part of their larger failed campaign to keep this Senate seat. I just wanted to point her out as a useful counter-example to any nonsense you might encounter about how the Democratic party is a populist-friendly organization.